Resilience from the perspective of diagnostic radiography students

Abstract

IntroductionResilience is a concept associated with the ability to overcome, adapt, and recover from stressors. The radiography profession is known to be stressful, and one can reason that radiographers must be resilient in order to cope with the clinical environment. Research shows there are varied understandings of resilience. However, little is known about the concept of resilience specifically as it relates to the perspectives of diagnostic radiography students within the clinical workplace.This paper reports on one aspect of a comprehensive study of resilience amongst radiography students. The objective of this paper is, therefore, to present the exploration of the concept of resilience drawing from the data gathered from first-year diagnostic radiography students. MethodsA qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual approach was adopted for this study. Qualitative data was collected through focus group interviews. A purposive sampling method was employed, selecting from first-year diagnostic radiography students at a University of Technology (UoT) in the Western Cape, South Africa. Interviews were audio-recorded transcribed and thematically analysed. Data was collected until saturation was reached. ResultsThe meaning of resilience as explained from the perspective of radiography students included three subthemes namely: (1) fundamentals of resilience; (2) external protective factors and (3) internal protective factors. ConclusionThis study demonstrated that radiography students associated resilience with positive attributes. Furthermore, the study identified various resilience enhancement strategies to better support diagnostic radiography students in the clinical environment like supportive radiographers and talking to peers. Implications for practiceThe identification of resilience enhancement strategies is important as it will assist with the introduction of curriculum renewal initiatives tailored to support first-year diagnostic radiography students as they develop their resilience to stressors in the clinical environment.